Striving for Efficiency
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In today’s economic environment, consumer demand for fuel-efficient vehicles has never been higher. Vehicle aerodynamic design has a critical impact on fuel efficiency, through reducing wind resistance of the vehicle's exterior shape and reducing losses associated with requirements for cooling flow through the engine compartment. Aerodynamic design starts with the earliest concepts of the vehicle based on its shape and proportion to meet styling intent, passenger space, and component packaging needs. As the exterior shape is refined, the aerodynamic efficiency is driven by shape parameters such as angles, radii, and dimensions. Typically, you can make improvements in these parameters with minimal impact on the styling aesthetics. As the vehicle design progresses further, aerodynamic panels and devices such as spoilers, wheel deflectors, and underbody covers are sized and positioned mainly for aerodynamic benefit, in trade-off with the cost of parts and other constraints. Throughout these design stages, adequate cooling flow to the heat exchangers must be maintained while minimizing the associated wind resistance.
The challenge faced by vehicle manufacturers in each design stage is the urgent need for information about how to improve the design. Aerodynamic information can be costly and difficult to obtain, traditionally involving building a detailed model or prototype of the vehicle and testing the model in a wind tunnel. Design iterations at this late stage of product development are time-consuming and costly because it is difficult to make large-scale changes to a model, or to change any surface features of a fully detailed prototype during a wind tunnel test. Prototype testing for aerodynamics is a major contributor to vehicle development costs and design cycle time.